Prince Takes Coachella To School

Most of my thoughts on yesterday’s installment of Coachella were scoured away by Prince, who put on a show, complete with swagger, virtuosity, and that little bit of ego that more people who play music for a living really should have. He brought out Morris Day and Sheila E. He went on these extended freestyles that made me wonder if he’s going to transition into a career as an MC soon. He covered “Creep.” (And I was stuck in the bathroom line for it. This is where I curse my femininity.) I heard some frat bro in cargo shorts say “dude, I’m sorta getting, like emotional” during his backup singer’s bringing-down-the-house performance of Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” (!)–and I’m sure that the association of that song with those tear-jerking ASPCA ads didn’t help on the waterworks front. And he declared the Coachella grounds to be “his house,” and really, who can argue? Roger Waters? Uh, no. Any video of last night’s show will probably vanish from YouTube as soon as it’s put up (thanks to Princely decrees), but I’ve got the set list after the jump.

I have already listened to the “Creep” cover half a dozen times this morning…man, who knew he could still hit such high notes? Amazing. See David Cook, THAT is how you make a cover your own!

essdog

Good god, that must have been an amazing show.

NoWireHangers

I’m so sorry you had to pee. I went to the bathroom after the Hot Chip and didn’t pee again till I was back in L.A. at 4am. I thought I might wet my pants during Prince but he thoroughly blew my mind (and I’m already a huge fan) that I forgot about the blisters on my feet, the dehydration, and the exhaustion and just DANCED. And screamed. I now have a Prince hangover. There is no way you can see Prince live and not enjoy it. He owned Coachella and he knew it. Now everyone else does too. I would so have his baby.

Chris Molanphy

Mad, mad jealous. Good think we love you. ;-)

Al Shipley

You can’t just say someone covered a song called “Creep” without specifying whose. Given Prince’s endorsements of TLC back in the day I assumed it was theirs before I googled and figured out it was Radiohead’s. And given that Foo Fighters cover a couple years back, I wouldn’t put it past him to do the Stone Temple Pilots song.That said, that’s a fucking awesome setlist, I’m jealous.

Anonymous

The instrumental jam on the set list was actually a Santana song. And the backup singer was Ledisi.

mordecai1908

OK, this is a new one – YouTube has plenty of videos of the show, but rather than take them down, they’ve stripped the audio out of all them for copyright reasons.

Anonymous

i sincerely hope that the response Prince got from this show will encourage him to hit the road in earnest. it worked for Daft Punk, didn’t it?

brainchild

this makes me smile :)

thumper

it was unreal – prince was the best all weekend for sure…

xx

Anonymous

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha…………..hahahahahahahahahahah.
Prince’s performance couldn’t hold a candle to the Roger Waters show…and I didnt even go for Waters. Did you even see it??!?!?

Santos

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